I Wouldn’t Read Too Much into That Story about Bruce Willis' iTunes Music Collection
There’s a hot story going around today about Bruce Willis and his plans to fight to pass his digital music collection to his daughters when he dies. According to the Daily Mail,
The Hollywood action hero is said to be considering legal action against technology giant Apple over his desire to leave his digital music collection to his daughters.
…
Since Willis – who occasionally sings with a blues band and has appeared in a video for Damon Albarn’s band Gorillaz – has apparently spent thousands of dollars downloading music on to ‘many, many iPods’, he is keen to be able to hand it on legitimately to daughters Rumer, Scout and Tallaluh.
I’m really not sure how much weight we should put in this story. It just doesn’t add up in a number of different categories.
Update: And now the story has been denied by Mrs. Bruce Willis. Told you so.
I was planning to write about this story and how it relates to ebooks, but since that is something of a stretch I sat back and contemplated the story while planning my route of attack. I kept reading the original article, looking for the best points to raise, and I noticed that there were a number of details missing.
If you’ve only read one of the reposted copied stories, I suggest that you go read the original. One thing you won’t find there is any statement from Bruce Willis or his spokesman about the topic. That’s not such a big deal, but I’d like to know where the info came from in order to evaluate the credibility of that source.
You might also notice the absence of references to any past stories about Mr. Willis' efforts in this area. Normally that wouldn’t be a big deal (my Google-fu is high), but in this case I can’t find anything in Google either.
And I’m not done. Have you considered where the story was published? It was in the Daily Mail, a right wing UK tabloid that is not widely regarded for its accuracy. While that by itself is not enough to condemn this article, it does start to add up.
And finally, has anyone considered how much Bruce Willis would really care about having "spent thousands of dollars downloading music"? The guy is reportedly worth $150 million. The music collection would have to hit 5 digits to get beyond being a rounding error for his personal net worth. Heck, I bet his annual lawyer costs are higher than the amount spent on that music collection.
Do you really think he’s going to spend more than a couple minutes of time making sure his daughters could keep the music? At best this might be a footnote in the legal docs somewhere (right after the cars), but I seriously doubt that it’s the focal point.
Now, I’m not saying that he doesn’t believe in this issue, but I don’t know that the original article is describing his motivations accurately. He might even really be funding the legislation in 5 states, but if he is I would bet his interest is more philanthropic than personal.
All I know today is that the Daily Mail article is not trustworthy. It does not stand up to scrutiny.
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